During the 18th century, one of the most acclaimed and controversial African American poets emerged, Phillis Wheatley. Stolen from her homeland, “pleasing Gambia…with native grace in spring”, by slave-traders and sold to the Wheatley Family in Boston, Massachusetts (Levernier), Wheatley became the first African American woman to publish a book of poems. Judged and criticized for neglecting her own state of slavery and becoming a Christianized slave, her work led to the embarrassment of future African American generations of writers and readers. Due to recent publications and newly discovered letters and poems, James Levernier has made clear in his work, “Style as Protest in The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley” that Wheatley was far from being oblivious
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Unlike other slave-owners who would exploit their slaves, the Wheatley Family decided to provide Wheatley with a Christian education. Within sixteen months of her arrival in Boston, Wheatley was familiar with the language, imagery, and Puritan typology as well as linguistic and verbal abilities (Levernier). She lived in a predominantly white colonial society who viewed Africans and Native Americans as less and used Christianity to justify their behavior. Wheatley was prohibited by a racist society from publishing her true thoughts but with ambiguity and irony, it was possible to express her views indirectly. According to Levernier, the style used by Wheatley is described as African as well as British Neoclassical. The poetic modes used in her literal works were the pastoral, the elegy, the lyric, and the epic (Shields). She develops the use of subversive persona, along with ironic wording and innuendo as a form of protest against the abuse, suppression, and emancipation of slaves in …show more content…
Her misread poem, “On Being Brought to America”, is revealed as the most stylistically sophisticated in the representation of her ironies as a Christianized slave. Wheatley goes on to emphasize the white Christian hypocrisy using terms and puns; “die”, “Cain”, “refin’d”. Levernier reflects that indigo dye and the sugar cane refineries were products supported by the horror of slavery at the time. Shortly after the publication of this poem, the Christians of New England who reflected on her work refused to purchase such products. In effect, the Quaker preacher John Woolman stated that the use of them was immoral because it was obtained from “the labours of poor oppressed Negroes” (Levernier). In 1774, Wheatley was granted her freedom after the publication of her first book “Poem on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”
Unlike other slave-owners who would exploit their slaves, the Wheatley Family decided to provide Wheatley with a Christian education. Within sixteen months of her arrival in Boston, Wheatley was familiar with the language, imagery, and Puritan typology as well as linguistic and verbal abilities (Levernier). She lived in a predominantly white colonial society who viewed Africans and Native Americans as less and used Christianity to justify their behavior. Wheatley was prohibited by a racist society from publishing her true thoughts but with ambiguity and irony, it was possible to express her views indirectly. According to Levernier, the style used by Wheatley is described as African as well as British Neoclassical. The poetic modes used in her literal works were the pastoral, the elegy, the lyric, and the epic (Shields). She develops the use of subversive persona, along with ironic wording and innuendo as a form of protest against the abuse, suppression, and emancipation of slaves in …show more content…
Her misread poem, “On Being Brought to America”, is revealed as the most stylistically sophisticated in the representation of her ironies as a Christianized slave. Wheatley goes on to emphasize the white Christian hypocrisy using terms and puns; “die”, “Cain”, “refin’d”. Levernier reflects that indigo dye and the sugar cane refineries were products supported by the horror of slavery at the time. Shortly after the publication of this poem, the Christians of New England who reflected on her work refused to purchase such products. In effect, the Quaker preacher John Woolman stated that the use of them was immoral because it was obtained from “the labours of poor oppressed Negroes” (Levernier). In 1774, Wheatley was granted her freedom after the publication of her first book “Poem on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”